14 replies to this topic

[Khatharr]

Hello.

I've been using irrKlang for some time now, but with continual bugs, strange behavior and a more or less unacceptable stance on memory management I'm looking for a replacement if I can find one that's not significantly more painful to use. (I'm done arguing with Gebhardt about ISoundSource management...)

If push comes to shove I could go back to using a libsndfile and some mp3 decoder, but I'd really prefer an all-in-one package with support for common formats (wav, mp3, ogg) if there's a free one poking around.

I'd really appreciate any suggestions.

[L. Spiro]

I don’t have a library to suggest but I should warn you about the use of MP3 decoders.
MPEG LA’s hobby is to sue people.

People who have used FFmpeg in commercial products have been sued.

Your only choice in playing MP3 files without buying a very expensive license is to use the operating system whenever built-in support is provided, for example on iOS.


L. Spiro

[Khatharr]

Ah, so they finally got around to asserting ownership. (What a crock.)

I guess that's a +1 for libsndfile then. I really hate implementing audio pipelines though. -.-

[PsychotikRabbit]

I used FMOD library before, it's simple and there is doc and tutorial about it. http://www.fmod.org/fmod-downloads.html

[Xaer0]

SFML has a really handy Audio module, If you dont want to use the rest of it, you only have to link to the audio lib,
supports .wav and ogg (maybe more but im not sure, I've only ever used those two)

The API is also very simple, something along the lines of,
[source lang="cpp"]///make a soundbuffer, make sure to keep it in memory as long as you need the sound///this stores the raw sound datasf::SoundBuffer buffer;if (!buffer.loadFromFile("sound.wav")) return -1;sf::Sound sound;sound.setBuffer(buffer);sound.play();[/source]
For music, you should probably use the sf::Music class because it streams the sound in from the file,
instead of loading it all into memory


[source lang="cpp"]sf::Music music;///No buffer this timeif (!music.openFromFile("music.ogg")) return -1; // errormusic.play();[/source]

I believe SFML uses the unrestrictive MIT license as well, so its free, which is nice

Edited by Xaer0, 12 December 2012 - 01:54 AM.

[lonewolff]

What platform and language are you using?

[solenoidz]

I would suggest OpenAL + ogg/vorbis instead of mp3.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this combination is proven to work and is free to use.

[L. Spiro]

I would suggest OpenAL + ogg/vorbis instead of mp3.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this combination is proven to work and is free to use.

This is the combination I use in my engine for this reason.
However he prefers not to build a sound engine from scratch—Vorbis may provide tools for decoding .OGG files but you still have to make the system for sending them to OpenAL and playing them manually.


L. Spiro

[Khatharr]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll check them out.

[X-Shiryu]

Its Worths using OpenAL, yet? Creative web site is broken, no more updates.
I can't even download OpenAL SDK anymore.
For Windows OS i'm using XAudio2, but i need an alternate audio library, too.

OpenAL its free to use? I couldn't find the license on creative web site. Should worry about it?

[Khatharr]

It's free to use. The License is embedded in the documentation.

http://connect.creat...s/AllItems.aspx

Edited by Khatharr, 12 December 2012 - 05:37 PM.

[X-Shiryu]

The OpenAL License must be distributed along with final application?

[Khatharr]

That's not uncommon. They just want you to drop the text file in there somewhere so people don't think you invented OpenAL.

Edited by Khatharr, 28 December 2012 - 09:04 PM.

[nixius]

OpenAL is widely used but I found it quite difficult if you just want to use it in a simple way (i.e. simple BGM and sfx).

I used FMod before and it is a delight to use, but I used it in a non-commercial project so it was free. If you can afford it I would say 100% FMOD.

Isn't there an SDL audio library of some description? Not sure how relevant or useful that will be but perhaps worth a quick look?

Edited by nixius, 30 December 2012 - 10:43 AM.

[Khatharr]

I ended up with FMOD, yeah. It's really nice and does what I want without being intrusive or annoying.